By: Kurt Vonnegut
Kilgore Trout has pulled out an old tuxedo in preparation for an Arts Festival. He is talking to his parakeet, Bill.
He dabbed at his tuxedo with a damp rag, and the fungi came aways easily. "Hate to do this, Bill," he said of the fungi he was murdering. "Fungi have as much right to life as i do. They know what they want, Bill. Damned if I do anymore."
The he thought about what Bill himself might want. It was easy to guess. "Bill," he said, "i like you so much, and i am such a big shot in the Universe, that i will make your three biggest wished come true." He opened the door of the cage, something Bill couldn't have done in a thousand years.
Bill flew over to a windowsill. He put his little shoulder against the glass. There was just one layer of glass between Bill and the great out-of-doors. Although Trout was in the storm window business, he had no storm windows on his own abode.
"Your second wish is about to come true," said Trout, and he again did something which Bill could never have done. He opened the window. But the opening of the window was such an alarming business to the parakeet that he flew back to his cage and hopped inside.
Trout closed the door of the cage and latched it. "That's the most intelligent use of three wishes i ever heard of," he told the bird. "You made sure you'd still have something worth wishing for- to get out of the cage."
